KARACHI, June 19: In the Sindh Assembly session on Tuesday, which was the second day of debate on the budget 2007-08, seven more members – three from the treasury side and four from the opposition benches – took part in the general discussion.
Speaker Syed Muzaffar Hussain Shah, who presided over the session, called it a day at 4.15pm on the condition that the members would ensure their presence in the house to start the proceedings at 10am on Wednesday.
The contents of the speeches indicated that the members had not done their homework. The criticism from the opposition was sweeping while the treasury side did not have the exact figures of large allocations made for the education, health and agriculture sectors.
However, Sindh Minister for Women Development Dr Saeeda Malik exercised her oratory skills to the hilt projecting the performance of her department, particularly the gender reforms action plan to empower women in every field.
Being a practising doctor, she pointed out the weaknesses in the health policy and stressed the need for more attention to the preventive side.
Education Minister Dr Hameeda Khuhro highlighted the higher side of the budget allocated for promotion of education in the province. She failed to justify the provision for recruitment of teachers and other staff in the budget every year despite the ban imposed on recruitment.
She also failed to respond when the opposition criticised that around Rs100,000 was generated in the head of fee collected from aspiring teachers, but neither the jobs were given nor the money was refunded.
When Senior Minister Sardar Ahmad was asked the same question by journalists during the post-budget press conference, he said there was no provision for charging a fee from the applicants and this question could only be answered by the minister concerned.
Iqbal Quadri of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement refuted the claims of the opposition that the budget presentation without the NFC award was unconstitutional.
Referring to Article 120 of the Constitution, he said it was a matter of record that for the first time Senior Minister Syed Sardar Ahmad had forcefully taken up the case in the National Finance Commission. He said Mr Ahmad had insisted that the criteria for the award should not be the population alone but also revenue generation.
Anwar Mehar of the PPP said that agriculture sector was ignored in the budget despite the fact that the tail-end growers hardly got water.
Kulsoom Nizamani of the MMA said there was no point in having a discussion on the budget, which was prepared by the bureaucracy, as elected representatives had never been involved in the preparation of the budget.
Expressing her concern over rising prices, unemployment and increasing poverty in Sindh, she said that the government policies were manifestation of the fact that the rulers were not keen to bring improvement in the life of the common man.
Jam Tamachi of the PPP painted a bleak picture of every sector saying that Sindh had been pushed behind all other provinces. He said the government in Sindh had always been run on the dictates of intelligence agencies.
He said not only in the Basic Health Units in the interior but even teaching hospitals did not have qualified doctors.
Abdul Rehman Rajput of the MMA said that only 30 to 40 per cent of development work was carried out during the last eight to 10 months in the province. He said he could not comprehend as to how the remaining task would be covered in a short span of two months.
Earlier, the house was called to order at 11.05am, with the speaker in the chair.
After the question-hour when Nisar Khuhro of PPP proposed that a resolution should be adopted for increasing the time to update the new electoral rolls in which five million voters were missing, Law Minister Iftikhar Chaudhry rejected the suggestion saying that the constitution provided 21 days to check and update the lists.